The Siegfried Line, known in German as the Westwall , was a German defensive line built during the late 1930s. Started in 1936, opposite the French Maginot Line, it stretched more than 630 km (390 mi) from Kleve on the border with the Netherlands, along the western border of Nazi Germany, to the town of Weil am Rhein on the border with Switzerland. The line featured more than 18,000 bunkers, tunnels and tank traps.
Front line in December 1944
American soldiers cross the Siegfried Line and march into Germany.
U.S. soldiers pause for a rest among the ruins of the Siegfried Line in the Rhine Valley, February 1945
Bunker ruins near Aachen
Kleve is a town in the Lower Rhine region of northwestern Germany near the Dutch border and the River Rhine. From the 11th century onwards, Cleves was capital of a county and later a duchy. Today, Cleves is the capital of the district of Kleve in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The city is home to one of the campuses of the Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences.
Schwanenburg Castle
Cleves in the 17th century
Mid 17th century Forest Garden
City and port of Kleve (c. 1895)